GILGIT, Aug 9: Increasing incidents of robbery and hold-up along the 1284-kilometre-long Karakoram Highway have become a nuisance for foreign tourists, local people and businessmen coming to the area or travelling to other places.

Robbers pose a big threat to foreign tourists who are not only a major source of foreign exchange of the country but also provide livelihood to the people living in these far-off places and whose income is mainly dependent and linked to foreign and local tourists coming from other parts of the country.

The solution lies in the formation of a special police force on the pattern of Motorway Police of Islamabad-Lahore Motorway or like Highway Police which operates on the Super Highway between Karachi and Hyderabad.

According to investigation carried out by Dawn, the most robbery-prone part of the Karakoram Highway is between Mansehra (NWFP) to Sust border checkpoint as a large number of trade conveys, foreign tourists and passengers of buses have been looted on this notorious strip of the highway.

The robbers roam freely on this particular strip as they have no fear of being caught because of non-presence of any police force on the highway. As there is no police force, it is very easy for robbers to block the highway at any point and deprive foreign tourists and local tourists and passengers of their belongings and armed hold-ups have now become a routine matter.

Once the Karakoram portion between Gilgit City and Hunza used to be the most peaceful portion but it has also become unsafe now after an attack on foreign tourists (June 2, 2004) followed by three more attacks on lorries and killing of drivers of two of the lorries on Aug 2.

Last month, the armed robbers attacked a passenger bus in Kohistan and killed three passengers and injured dozens besides creating panic and causing a sense of insecurity among the passengers travelling through the highway.

As the air travel is expensive and totally dependent on weather, most of the local tourists coming from southern parts of the country and local passengers and businessmen prefer travelling by road.

As the PIA Fokker flights are mostly weather-dependent and heavily booked, it is hard for ordinary people to find a seat in them. The situation being so, most of the tourists and the people coming to the area are left with no choice but to travel in buses.